Toothbrushes, and in particular mechanised or electric toothbrushes, are well known and are available with a number of different modes of operation.
Mechanised toothbrushes having brush heads capable of rotational, oscillatory and pulsating motion are known in the art. The motion of the brush head is driven mechanically so that the user need only position the toothbrush at a particular location in the mouth. The brushing action is provided by a mechanical drive in order to brush teeth, tongue, gums and any other parts of the mouth. This reduces the manual force required to clean the teeth using the mechanical toothbrush compared to a manual toothbrush where the user provides the brushing motion and also provides brushing which could not conveniently be replicated manually.
Some current mechanised toothbrushes exhibit a brushing motion which brushes off the gum rather than laterally across the teeth or towards the gum. Brushing toward the gum can cause material to be forced underneath the leading edge of the gum or may strip the leading edge of the gum from the teeth. Current mechanised toothbrushes provide various means to brush of the gum in only certain parts of the mouth. These brushes are not capable of providing brushing off the gum action in parts of the mouth.
A method of effectively cleaning the surface of the tongue is to brush the tongue in a forward direction only.
In order to effectively clean the longitudinal indentations on the inner surfaces of the upper and lower front teeth it is necessary to exercise brushing motion parallel to their length and off the gum.
Known toothbrushes provide dual, multi directional or scatter brushing motion. The direction of the brushing motion produced by mechanised toothbrushes is generally the same irrespective of the part of the mouth or teeth with which they are in contact. However, this single non-variable motion is not effective or efficient in cleaning every the part of the teeth, gums and tongue.
It is one object of the present invention to provide a toothbrush which can implement the modified bass method for brushing teeth. The modified bass method is known and recommended by many dentists. This method involves making small circular motions with a toothbrush to clean plaque from the gum line and from the indented ridge in a tooth which runs along the gum line at the base of the tooth.
The bass modified method fails to provide fully effective brushing to parts of the teeth. For example, it does not reach certain areas between the teeth with sufficient effectiveness. However the modified bass method effectively addresses cleaning the indented ridge which is one of the most problematic areas of the teeth in terms of plaque accumulation and debris accumulation.
The modified bass method can be difficult to manually exercise and the toothbrush can mechanically simulate the brushing method. However it is a most effective and safe method of brushing teeth as the brush movements can be oriented in different directions to afford the most suitable brushing direction in each of the different parts of the mouth.